Clustering user interface

ABSTRACT

A user is presented with a display of item labels and category labels, where item labels are shown to the extent that categories contain not more than a threshold count of items. Alternatively, the item labels are shown to the extent that display area is left over after the display of category labels, and the categories for which item labels are shown are selected from the smallest categories to the largest.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation application of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 08/861,365, filed on May 21, 1997, now U.S. Pat.No. 6,025,843, which is a continuation-in-part application of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 08/711,300, filed on Sept. 6, 1996, nowissued U.S. Pat. No. 5,790,121.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to computer database searches. More precisely,this invention provides an improved interface for performing computerdatabase searches and filtering search results.

In the typical database search, a user queries the database by selectinga set of criteria (a request) and submitting those criteria to adatabase engine. The criteria might be in the form of a range ofallowable values for a given field, an upper limit, a lower limit, or anexact match. Multiple field criteria can be combined by the use oflogical operators (e.g., NOT, AND, OR, GREATER_THAN). The criteria mightalso include comparisons between multiple fields (e.g., AGE>=IQ). Oncethe criteria are submitted to the database engine, the database engineselects all the records in the database that meet all of the criteriaselected by the user and returns those records to the user.

Many different methods have been utilized to facilitate the user'screation of database requests. One standard for specifying databasesearch criteria to the database engine is Structured Query Language(SQL). SQL statements are strings of text and numbers which define thesearch request. If the end user requesting data from a database isproficient in SQL, the end user can specify the SQL statement directly.However, where the end user is not proficient in SQL programming, a userinterface might be provided to allow the end user to intuitively selectelements from the user interface, which are then converted into SQLstatements for submission to an SQL-capable database engine. Many userinterfaces which convert user input into SQL statements are known. Insome interfaces, a user answers a series of questions, fills out anon-screen form or selects from a finite number of choices using a mouseor other pointing device.

Once such search request is submitted, the database engine returns therecords meeting the criteria, if any, and the user interface displaysthe records or some indication of the records. Several methods have beenused to display the data returned from the database query, such astables, charts, graphs, and graphic images such as maps or treestructures. The term “maps” as used herein can be geographical maps orlogical maps laying out data points in an N-dimensional coordinatesystem.

It is also known to allow for refinement of a database search after theresults of an initial search have been obtained. A refinement search isoften desired by users where the initial search produces too many or toofew records. With a refinement search, users might edit the initialsearch request or add additional criteria to the initial search request.By doing so, users can find the proper quantity and quality of recordsthey need.

An important factor in determining a proper search criteria is priorknowledge of the database and the distribution of the values in eachfield. For example, the user knows that the database contains only alisting of Democrats, a search for male Republicans over the age offifty living in cities of at least one million people will turn up norecords. The user might then waste time refining the search by firsteliminating any limitation on the size of the city, then eliminating theage limitation, eventually to discover that there are no Republicans inthe database. The opposite result, too many records, could occur if theuser specified too general a set of search criteria. In that case, theuser might also waste time iteratively narrowing the search with littleeffect. Often, the success of a database search is dependent upon luck.

Another shortcoming of most current search methodologies is that usersdo not gain any knowledge during the search process to help refine theirsearch. In some systems, database records, especially geographicaldatabases, present records to the user as a set of dots overlaid on amap. While such an interface might be useful for a few dots, it becomesimpractical for use with a large number of dots.

With large numbers of dots, either the dots will be too small to beselected with a pointing device or, if large enough, the dots willobscure other dots. FIG. 1 illustrates the former problem; FIG. 2illustrates the latter.

One way to avoid the selection problem is to allow the user to click thepointing device near the point of interest and treat the click as theselection of all points within a radius (“a radius search”). Of course,this has the disadvantage of selecting too many records, too few recordsor the wrong records.

Another way to avoid the selection problem is to have a user select onarbitrary boundaries such as state boundaries, and gets a text listingof all the locations in that state, and possibly a further graphicalselection of a county or region. The state selection is shown in FIG. 3.The disadvantage of this approach is that the user, at most, knows onlywhether or not a state contains at least one dot.

In addition to geographical data and other data which can be plotted ina two-dimensional plane (or an N-dimensional coordinate system with Nbeing an integer greater than zero), data in searchable hierarchicalstructures often need to be searched.

One way to present the data points in a hierarchical structure search isto present all the data points. However, with large numbers of datapoints, this is impractical.

For example, Microsoft Word™ word processing software provides a featurefor searching for files among the hierarchical directory structure of adisk. The matching files are displayed in a directory tree structureshowing each of the directors for the files along with their parentdirectories. While this is useful for a small number of files, thedisplay for a large number of files would not fit on the screen and thusthe user must scroll through the listing or manually “collapse”uninteresting directory structures to be able to see the directorystructures of interest. This approach does not give the user a “bigpicture” view of file structures, unless the user knows what the bigpicture looks like and creates it for themselves.

Yet another shortcoming of prior art information displays appears whenthere are more items to be listed than can fit on a display. Onesolution is to list all the items on a scrollable list. The other is togroup the items into categories and display categories first, allow theuser to select one of the categories, then display the items matchingthe selected category. Neither of these approaches is entirelysatisfactory, however. In the former case, too much data and not enoughinformation is presented. In the latter case, depending on thecategories, the display might be underused.

Therefore, what is needed is an improved search interface which presentsthe user with information and views of the overall data being searched,in order to allow for an informed search.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In one embodiment of a search interface according to the presentinvention, a user is presented with a display map from which the userselects database records of interest. For the records which are in rangeof the display map's limits, a cluster evaluator groups some of therecords into clusters. Generally, a cluster is a set of records whichwould be clustered on the display map. On the display map, unclusteredrecords are represented by item icons, while clusters are represented Iycluster icons. If a user selects an item icon, the associated record isselected and a predetermined action is taken. If a cluster icon isselected, the display map is “zoomed in” to show greater detail aroundthe cluster. Typically, a number of clustered records become unclusteredrecords when the zooming occurs, because the clustering criteria aresharpened. The user can iteratively select clusters, resulting ingreater and greater detail, until the user selects an item icon and thepredetermined action is taken with that record. The predetermined actioncould be any action which might be taken with an individual record, suchas displaying additional fields for the record, initiating a process formanipulating the record, or the like.

The term “icon,” as used herein, refers to a user interface elementwhich is presented to the user and is selectable by the user using apointing device. Depending on context, icons can be regular shapes orirregular shapes, can have identified borders or implied borders, andcan either be illustrated with a graphic that hints to the meaning ofthe icon or can be a plain area whose meaning is identified by context.

The records are mapped to the display based on field values of therecord. For example, a two-dimensional map could be used to displayrecords which contain longitude and latitude values. The same principlescould be used for one-dimensional data, three-dimensional data, orhigher dimensional data which can be suitably represented on a two- orthree-dimensional display. If the search data is numerical data from asmany fields as the display has dimensions, cluster icons are graphicallydisplayed as shaded regions on a graph or map, roughly coextensive withthe mappings of the records to the display. Unclustered records aregraphically represented by item icons at the location corresponding tothe field data of the records. Thus, a user can easily see where theclusters are, where the unclustered records are, and regions where norecords exist. Clusters might overlap, so that one record is clusteredinto more than one cluster. By selecting a particular cluster, the userreduces the dataset to a subset which contains only those records whichwere clustered into the selected cluster. The new subset is thenclustered to allow the users to narrow their search further, and theselection process to begin again. The users can end their search at anytime, but eventually, the dataset will be reduced to a set of recordsthat do not cluster.

The present invention can also be used to present hierarchicalstructures for user selection of records from such structures. Examplesof such hierarchical structures include electronic file storagedirectory structures, organizational charts within large organizations,plain hypertext pages on a Web site, or an intranet. In such cases,clustering is done by using a metric which is the number of links ratherthan a distance in a coordinate system or a weighted metric which takesinto account hierarchies where some links are more important thanothers, such as taxonomy hierarchy. For example, two files in the samedirectory would be deemed to have a metric between them of 0 and a filein a parent directory would have a metric between a file in an immediatesubdirectory of 1. For files which are “cousins,” the metric couldeither be the number of links in the shortest path between the two files(2) or the number of links to a common ancestor (1). Such a clusteringprocess might prove to be highly useful in sorting through corporatedata, if it is clustered and organized according to an organizationalchart, wherein information provided by departments nearer to the user'sdepartment is given more prominence than information from departmentswhich are “farther” away on the organization chart. Presentation ofhierarchical information would also be greatly simplified using thepresent invention, as many search engines or searching Worldwide Websites tend to either show too many hits or too few hits. For example, alarge URL (uniform resource locator) database such as YAHOO!'s databasewould provide too many references matching the word “team” to be of useto a searcher. However, with the clustering user interface of thepresent invention and a starting point, such as the “Oakland Raiders”subcategory of Yahoo!'s hierarchical subject database, the user couldbe, presented with all the hits, where many of the hits are clusteredinto a single entry. The user would be provided with a cluster icon to“open” that cluster, possibly leading to other clusters. Instead of aURL database, the invention could also be applied to a “yellow pages”database.

In order to achieve a manageable number of clusters the clusteringalgorithm can incrementally increase the minimum distance separating twoclusters. As the distance increases, the number of clusters willdecrease. When the total number of clusters becomes less than apredetermined threshold, that distance is used in the clusteringalgorithm. An alternative method for incremental clustering would be toinitially create clusters of records that are separated by very smalldistances and then gradually combine these clusters into bigger clustersuntil the total number of clusters becomes less than the threshold. Inorder to prevent creating too few clusters, the clustering process canbe modified to terminate before all cluster pair distances arecalculated. For instance, if a current step of clustering is combiningall clusters less than five miles apart, the clustering process couldterminate when the goal of getting the total number of clusters of lessthan twenty has been achieved even though there are still clusters lessthan five miles apart remaining.

In yet another application of clustering, a list of categorized itemsare displayed as a list of labels, where a label is a textual and/orgraphical indication of what the label represents. Each label representseither an item or a category, where an item label represents anindividual item, while a category label represents an entire category ofitems. A display manager determines which items are shown individuallyand which are grouped by category so that the full display is used. Onemethod of filling a display is to set a threshold count and to tag forindividual display all items in categories having no more than thethreshold count of items and to tag for category display the items incategories having more than the threshold count of items. The thresholdcount is then adjusted so that the labels just fill the display. Thus,if there are too many labels, the threshold count is raised, and ifthere are too few labels, the threshold count is lowered, until thethreshold count reaches one, at which point the display will show all ofthe items with item labels.

A further understanding of the nature and advantages of the inventionsherein may be realized by reference to the remaining portions of thespecification and the attached drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a clickable map with small squares on the map representingindividual records in a database of records where each record has alocation within the map of the continental United States.

FIG. 2 is a clickable map with large squares as used in the prior art.

FIG. 3 is a clickable map where a state of interest is selected.

FIG. 4 is a front view of a computer system which could be used toimplement the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of the components of the computer system shownin FIG. 4 as they relate to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a clickable map according to the present invention withunclustered item icons and cluster icons are overlaid on a map.

FIG. 7 is a clickable map which results from user selection in FIG. 6 ofthe cluster under the mouse cursor.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of a display process according to the presentinvention.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of a networked system over which the presentinvention could be used.

FIG. 10 is a map of a directory structure which can be searched usingthe present invention.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram of a display in which items are representedby item labels and category labels.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The present invention can operate on a wide variety of computers with anumber of suitable configurations, each being the preferred embodimentfor a particular implementation. For example, a palmtop implementationmight be preferred for use with a restaurant finding device designed tobe used by a person walking around looking for a good restaurant meetingthe person's criteria. A desktop model, with high resolution graphicsand a direct Internet connection might be preferred for an office-basedapplication- This detailed description of the invention will describe anembodiment using a desktop computer and an embodiment using the Internet(the global internetwork of networks generally referred to by thatname), although it should be understood that many other configurationsof computing devices might also be used to provide similarfunctionality. For example, the user might be an Internet or Intranetsurfer, a system administrator, an email administrator or an interactivetelevision viewer/user. The computing device might also be a mainframeterminal or computer kiosk.

FIG. 4 shows a typical desktop computer 10 made up of a system box 12enclosing a hard disk 14, a keyboard 16, a mouse 18, and a monitor 20including a display surface 22. As is well known in the art, desktopcomputer 10 can be programmed with programs stored on hard disk 14 toperform various tasks. These tasks might involve accepting user inputfrom keyboard 16 and mouse 18, and/or displaying images or text ondisplay surface 22. The input from mouse 18 is in the form of eithermovement in two dimensions (rolling the mouse) or clicking (pressing oneof the mouse buttons). It is also well known to replace mouse 18 withequivalent two-dimensional pointing devices, or even three-dimensionalpointing devices. With suitable software or hardware, monitor 20 can bemade to display three-dimensional images, as is well known in thegraphic arts.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating the typical contents of systembox 12 in more detail. A central processing unit (CPU) 202 executesprograms stored in a program memory 204 by reading program instructionsfrom program memory 204 via processor bus 206. Of course, multiple CPU'scould be provided for faster operation in some computer systems. CPU 202interprets input signals from mouse 18 provided on bus 206 after beingsuitably transformed by a mouse driver 208 which might be hardware,software, or a combination of both. CPU 202 uses a RAM (random accessmemory) 210 for storage of program variables as needed. Bus 206 alsoprovides a path for CPU 202 to send output signals to display surface 22of monitor 20 (see FIG. 4) via a display driver 222 and video displaymemory 224. If used, desktop computer 10 can communicate over a networkwith a network connection 218.

To program desktop computer 10 according to the present invention, harddisk 14 is loaded with a map database 220 and one or more programs. Tobegin executing a program which implements the present invention, CPU202 causes the program to be loaded from hard disk 14 into programmemory 204. In a typical personal desktop computer, program memory 204and RAM 210 are different segments of one memory structure. As shown inFIG. 5, the program includes a cluster evaluator 230, a displaygenerator 232, an input processor 234, a database query interface 236and a record action module 238. Other components, such as a databaseengine, are included but not shown in FIG. 5.

Using the system described in FIGS. 4-5, a user will select records frommap database 220 and have a selected record acted on by record actionmodule 238. A process of using the system according to the presentinvention is described in more detail in connection with FIGS. 6-7.First, two examples of the prior art will be described. In both theprior art and the presently described inventive embodiment are userinterfaces in which the user's goal is to select a record according togeographical location. One use of such a system is to allow users toselect one store of a national chain of stores and perform an actionwith respect to that store (e.g., dial that store's telephone number,get a map of surface streets giving directions to the store, getlistings of hours of operation, products carried, manager name, etc.).

FIG. 1 shows one method of record selection known in the prior art. Eachof the small black squares on the map represents one store. To select astore, the user positions a mouse cursor 250 over the desired one of theblack squares and clicks a mouse button to select the store. While thatmay be useful in areas where there are few stores, such as Colorado andOklahoma, it would be very difficult for the user to position the mouseexactly to select the desired store if it were in California,Washington, Texas or the East Coast. The selection difficulty increasesif the display uses, instead of small black squares, icons displayingthe company's logo.

FIG. 2 shows what a user interface might look like is if iconsdisplaying a company's logo were to be presented in each dot. As FIG. 2shows, the logo icons would be completely unwieldy even with only a fewlocations.

FIG. 3 shows one way to avoid the problems illustrated in FIGS. 1-2.Instead of the user having to select one store from all the nationalstores, the user instead selects the state of interest. In FIG. 3, theuser has positioned the cursor and selected the state of Wyoming. Inresponse, the computer would show an expanded, zoom display of the stateof Wyoming. As could have been seen from FIG. 1 or FIG. 2, the selectionof Wyoming is fruitless because there are no stores in Wyoming. On theother hand, the user might have selected California, which does havemany stores. However, the computer might need to zoom in one more levelif too many stores are represented in the state view.

FIG. 6 shows an improved display 300 according to the present invention.Overlaid on a map of the contiguous United States, display 300 includesitem icons 302 and cluster icons 304. Item icons 302 represent thelocations of individual stores which are not clustered with other storesas determined by cluster evaluator 230. Using mouse cursor 310, the usercan select either a cluster icon 304 or an item icon 302. If the userselects an item icon 302, the computer responds with the predetermineditem action. If the user selects a cluster icon, such as the one shownunder mouse cursor 310, the computer zooms in to the map shown in FIG.7. As should be apparent from FIG. 6, the user can easily identify wherethere are no stores and where there are collections of stores. Note thatthe data and the cluster icons are not necessarily constrained by stateor other boundaries. The shape of the cluster icons are determined bythe locations of their constituent items, as explained below.

Referring now to FIG. 7, the zoomed in map 320 now shows severalindividual stores in a second layer of clusters. The process of zoomingcontinues until the user aborts or selects an item icon. Note that, inFIGS. 6-7, the individual icons can be large enough to show thecompany's logo (“K” for the imaginary sunglass retailer “Kool Shades”used for this example) without interfering with the selection process.

The display maps shown in FIGS. 6-7 are generated by computer system 10according to the process shown in the flowchart of FIG. 8. Thatflowchart includes a series of steps numbered in ascending order whichare executed in that order except where indicated. In the first step(S1), the computer determines the map bounds. For a national chain suchas Kool Shades, the default initial map bounds are defined by therectangle enclosing the contiguous United States. In step S2, thecomputer determines which records are within the map bounds. These arethe records the user can select among.

Of the selectable records, cluster membership is determined (S3). Eachcluster has a set of records which are its members. In the illustrationsprovided here, each record is either a member of no cluster or a memberof one cluster. However, the system could be designed to allow a recordto be in more than one cluster, so long as each cluster contains asubset of records significantly smaller in size than the set of allrecords. Many of the different clustering algorithms in different fieldsof math and science will function adequately for this purpose, dependingon the goals of the search and type of data. Other clustering factors,such as the metric used and the normalization of metrics, play importantroles in the search process.

One method for clustering uses a geographic distance metric. Each recordfor a Kool Shades store includes the longitude and latitude of thestore. Using this information, the geographic distance between twostores is easily calculated using known techniques.

With other types of data, a metric can be generated from the values forthe data. For example, if the user were selecting records not based on ageographic location, but based on the records' “locations” on a plot oftwo field values, those field values might need to be normalized. Oneway to normalize the values is to scale each axis of the plot so thatthe values fall within a square. This is equivalent, for a first fieldand a second field, to dividing each first field value by the range offirst field values and dividing each second field value by the range ofsecond field values.

Although not required for distance calculations, the values can betransformed so that all normalized values fall between zero and one.Thus, a new value, V′, for a field value can be calculated from theoriginal field value, V, with the formula:

i V′=K(V−L)/(H−L)

where L is the lowest field value and H is the highest field value. Themultiplicative constant K is set to one to keep all values in the rangefrom zero to one, but it could be set to any other suitable value.

In any case, not only can a position in the two-dimensional displayspace can be found for any record, the “distance” between any tworecords can be found. These distances are used to determine whichrecords cluster with which other records. One method for clustering datais to consider each record as an N-dimensional sphere (a circle in thecase of Kool Shades stores). Any records whose spheres intersect wouldbe clustered together. The radius of the spheres may depend on the needsof the application, the total number of records, the distance betweenmap boundaries and the density of records in particular locations.

In the case of exclusive clustering (each record is a member of at mostone cluster), the following pseudocode describes the process ofassigning records to clusters:

Main Program: Find All Clusters

Begin Loop (for each Record)

If Record is Unclustered then Begin

Create New Cluster

Add_Record(Record, New_Cluster)

End If Then

End Loop

End Program

Procedure Add_Record(Record, Cluster)

Put Record in Cluster

Begin Loop (for each Unclustered Record)

If(Distance(Record, Unclustered Record)<Threshold)

then Add_Record(Unclustered Record, Cluster)

End Loop

End Procedure

The result of this process is that each unclustered record will beassigned to one cluster and any record which is within a sphere radiusof a clustered record will be a member of that cluster. As should beapparent, the size of the cluster is often dependent on the distributionof its members. In the above program implementation, all records areassigned to clusters, with the unclustered records each being the solemember of their cluster. Although, technically, they may be assigned tosuch solo clusters, they are considered to be unclustered.

Once the clusters and unclustered records are determined, the clustericon shapes are calculated (S4). Of course, if the data is notgraphically displayable, this step need not be done. A cluster icon canjust be a shaded area covering the union of the circles for each recordin the cluster. An algorithmically easier method for determining shapeis to consider each record as a square or a cube. The shape of thecluster is then derived by using polygons to outline the shape of theunion of the squares or cubes.

In step S5, the map is overlaid with cluster icons and item icons. Instep S6, the map and overlays are displayed to the user. As explainedabove, the user can easily see where unclustered records are, whereclusters are, the clusters' extents and the areas where no records areto be found.

In step S7, user input is accepted and in step S8, the type of userinput is evaluated. If the user clicks on the map outside an item iconor a cluster icon, the program flow is from step S8 back to S7 (i.e., noaction is performed). If the user selects an item icon, thepredetermined action for items is performed (S9), be it displaying astreet map with directions to the individual store or other data aboutthat individual record. If the user selects a cluster icon, the programproceeds to step S10, where a new, zoomed map is generated. Once the newmap is generated, the program loops back to step S2 to generate a newset of included records and the program repeats steps S2 through S8.Where applicable, the predetermined action could be a display of therecord in detail showing all field values, presenting an editing screenfor updating the record, initiating a phone call or an e-mail message toa place or person referred to in the record, or anything else that couldbe done with just one record.

A concrete example is presented here for further explanation of theprocess. Suppose data fields to be clustered were latitude and longitudeand the cluster icons and item icons were to be displayed on a 400×400pixel map of the contiguous United States. A radius of 8 pixels couldthen be used to cluster 1000 records scattered over a map of the UnitedStates. Since the scale on the U.S. map is roughly 10 miles/pixel,records within 80 miles of each other would be clustered (i.e., theinitial cluster threshold would be 80 miles). If the user selects acluster and the zoomed in map has a resolution of roughly 2 miles/pixel,records within 16 miles of each other will then be clustered. The resultof the larger scale is that more locations are separated and moresub-clusters are created. Of course, with dynamic thresholding, thethreshold distance is adjusted to obtain a suitable number of clusters.

The basic embodiment of the invention having been described, twovariations will now be described. FIG. 9 is a block diagram of anembodiment of a mapping system 800 using an Internet connection. Inmapping system 800, a Web browser 802 is used by the user to interactwith a Web server 804 via a TCP/IP interface 806 and the Internet 808.Web server 804 provides maps overlaid with icons to Web browser 802,which displays the maps and allows the user to click on points on thatmap. Web browser 802 returns to Web server 804 and mouse clicks whichWeb server 804 would need to have to generate a new map. Web server 804obtains the overlaid maps from a map overlay system 810 which operatessubstantially as described above, using a map database 812 to obtainmaps and store database 814 to obtain records about the location ofstores. Of course, the records mapped need not be store records.

Initially, map overlay system 810 will request the initial map from mapdatabase 812. Typically, map database 812 is a data structure containingmap data, but also includes an engine interface whereby map overlaysystem 810 requests maps by specifying a scale and the four edges of thedesired map. As the user selects points on the map, map overlay system810 will generate new maps according to the process described inconnection with FIG. 8.

Mapping system 800 is useful where the user does not control the mapdata or the store data. It also allows for easy updating of storelocations and other data in store database 814 because it iscentralized. Mapping system 800 could also be attached to a company'sWeb site is such as way that the store location function appears to bepart of the company's Web site, but is actually served by a map serviceprovider. This allows for easy updates of map serving software and theunderlying maps, since all of that is in one place.

In situations where the clusters and individual records cannot bedisplayed in a graph or map, the representation of the clusters can beperformed by providing the user with summary statistics and summarygraphs of the fields and/or combination of fields in each cluster. Theuser would use this summary information to select his/her desiredcluster or record. One such example is shown in FIG. 10, where a filedirectory structure to be navigated is laid out. Analogous to thelocation maps, distances between files can be determined, so they can beclustered. The distance between two files might be the number of linksto be traversed from one file to the other, or the number of links froma common ancestor of both files to the file furthest from the commonancestor.

FIG. 10 shows a selection display for a hierarchical directorystructure. The labels shown with cross-hatching are cluster icons forthe hierarchical directory list and item icons are shown with graylabels. For example, the cross-hatched label “repair” refers to adirectory of that name which contains files meting the search criteria.The file “WINPRINT.DLL” is an individual file meting the searchcriteria. If the user selects one of the cluster items, a new andexpanded display is presented showing the files and clusters underneaththe selected subdirectory in more detail. FIG. 10 shows twelve icons,which are either cluster icons or item icons. As each display isgenerated, the substitution of a cluster icon for a plurality ofindividual item icons is performed until sufficiently few individualicons remain. Of course, in some cases, such as a single directoryhaving hundreds of files meting the search criteria cannot beeffectively clustered using just a file's subdirectory as the clusterparameter.

FIG. 11 illustrates the use of clustering to optimally fill a display900. Display 900 is a display which might be used to gain insight into adatabase of cars available for sale. In this particular example, if allthe cars for sale were shown, display 900 would list 4911 items, whichcannot be shown all at once in a visible, understandable manner. Asshould also be apparent, since the cars are grouped into only fourcategories, limiting the display to only categories, only half of theavailable display space would be used. With the approach of the presentinvention, however, some of the items are shown by item labels andothers are represented by category labels. In FIG. 11, three item labels902 and four category labels 904 are shown (however, one of the categorylabels, 904 a, does not represent any items, as all of its items arerepresented by item labels 902).

The labels 902, 904 which represent items or categories are underlinedin the display to indicate to the user that the label can be selected toobtain information about the data which the label represents. Thus,selecting (via a “mouse click” on the item label or other methods) anitem label 904 will result in a display of information about theselected item, whereas selecting a category label will result in adisplay of item labels for items in that category, a request for moreinformation, a listing of items using subcategory labels, or somecombination of these.

As shown in FIG. 11, the “Electric” category is opened up to show all ofits items, but none of the other categories are opened. If they were,the listing would not fit into display 900, because at least 31 morelines would be used (if the next smallest category, “Antique”, isopened). To automatically determine which categories to open, aprocessor, such as the CPU shown in FIG. 5 and described above,determines how much space is available after the display of the categorylabels, and then opens categories beginning with the smallest category,until there is no space left in the display to open another category.Alternatively, the processor might set a threshold count and tentativelyopen each category having a number of items equal to or less than thethreshold count and then adjust the threshold count to shrink or expandthe list to best fit the display area.

FIG. 11 also shows dynamic data fields 906. These fields are used todisplay information about an item or a category when a cursor 908 ismoved over the item or category. If cursor 908 is over a category, datafields 906 present summary information about the items in that category,such as the average value for a field in the records for those items. Ifcursor 908 is over an item, data fields 906 present detailed informationabout the item. The detailed information can either be the specificvalues for the same field as used when cursor 908 is over a category orother information.

Using the category labels and item labels, a display area can beefficiently populated, while giving the user an indication of theoverall organization of the data in the database.

The above description is illustrative and not restrictive. Manyvariations of the invention will become apparent to those of skill inthe art upon review of this disclosure. The scope of the inventionshould, therefore, be determined not with reference to the abovedescription, but instead should be determined with reference to theappended claims along with their full scope of equivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of presenting a user with a display of aselection of items, wherein each item is characterized in the display asbeing a member of a category selected from a plurality of categories,the method comprising the steps of: determining a number of categorieswhich are to be represented in the display; determining a number ofselections which can be presented at one time in the display, aselection being either an item or a category, wherein an item can berepresented by a plurality of selections if the item is in a pluralityof categories; and displaying at least one item label and at least onecategory label, where the category label represents the items in thecategory, where the items and categories displayed are determined as afunction of the number of categories, the number of selections and athreshold count.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step ofdisplaying further comprises the steps of: representing items fromcategories having no more items than the threshold count by individualitem labels; and representing items from categories having more itemsthan the threshold count collectively by a category label.
 3. The methodof claim 1, wherein each item is characterized in the display as being amember of a category selected from a plurality of categories, the methodcomprising the steps of: determining a number of categories which are tobe represented in a display; determining a number of selections whichcan be presented at one time in the display, a selection being either anitem or a category, wherein an item can be represented by a plurality ofselections if the item is in a plurality of categories; and displayingat least one item label and at least one category label, where thecategory label represents the items in the category, where the items andcategories displayed are determined as a function of the number ofcategories, the number of selections, and a threshold count, whereinitems from categories having no more items than the threshold count arerepresented by individual item labels; and items from categories withmore items than the threshold count are collectively represented by oneof the at least one category labels.
 4. The method of claim 1, whereinthe categories further comprise a number of sub-categories.
 5. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising the step of accepting user inputselection of either an item label or a category label.
 6. The method ofclaim 5, further comprising the step of generating a regenerated displayfollowing the selection of a label, wherein the regenerated display is adisplay filtered according to the selected label.
 7. The method of claim1, further comprising a step of setting the threshold count to a valuewhich is calculated to fill the display with labels.
 8. The method ofclaim 1, wherein an item is referenced by a record having at least onefield in the record for categorizing and sub-categorizing the item. 9.The method of claim 1, wherein a category includes a cluster of records,where the record belongs to one or more cluster.
 10. The method of claim1, wherein an item is a link to a hypertext page.
 11. A method ofpresenting a user with a display of a selection of items, wherein eachitem is characterized in the display as being a member of a categoryselected from a plurality of categories, the method comprising the stepsof: determining a number of categories which are to be represented inthe display; determining a display area; determining how much of thedisplay area would be left over area, if any, after display of categorylabels representing items; designating at least one category as an opencategory; and displaying an item label for each item in the at least oneopen category and other open categories, if any, and a category labelfor each unopen category.
 12. The method of claim 11, wherein thecategories further comprise a number of sub-categories.
 13. The methodof claim 11, further comprising steps of: when a cursor is over acategory label, displaying summary information about the items in thecategory associated with the category label; and when the cursor is overan item label, displaying detailed information about the item associatedwith the item label.
 14. A computer program embodied on acomputer-readable medium for presenting a user with a display of aselection of items, the computer program comprising: a code segment fordetermining a number of categories which are to be represented in adisplay; a code segment for determining a number of selections which canbe presented at one time in the display, a selection being either anitem or a category, wherein an item can be represented by a plurality ofselections if the item is in a plurality of categories; and a codesegment for displaying at least one item label and at least one categorylabel, where the category label represents the items in the category,where the items and categories displayed are determined as a function ofthe number of categories, the number of selections and a thresholdcount.
 15. The computer program of claim 14, wherein the code segmentfor displaying further comprises: a code segment for representing itemsfrom categories having no more items than the threshold count byindividual item labels; and a code segment for representing items fromcategories having more items than the threshold count collectively by acategory label.
 16. The computer program of claim 14, further comprisinga code segment for accepting user input selection of either an itemlabel or a category label.
 17. The computer program of claim 16, furthercomprising a code segment for generating a regenerated display followingthe selection of a label, wherein the regenerated display is a displayfiltered according to the selected label.
 18. The computer program ofclaim 14, further comprising the code segment for setting the thresholdcount to a value which is calculated to fill the display with labels.19. A computer program embodied on a computer-readable medium forpresenting a user with a display of a selection of items, the computerprogram comprising: a code segment for determining a number ofcategories which are to be represented in the display; a code segmentfor determining a display area; a code segment for determining how muchof the display area would be left over area, if any, after display ofcategory labels representing items; a code segment for designating atleast one category as an open category; and a code segment fordisplaying an item label for each item in the at least one open categoryand other open categories, if any, and a category label for each unopencategory.
 20. The computer program of claim 19, wherein the a codesegment for designating at least one category as an open categoryfurther comprises a code segment for designating categories as open fromthe smallest category to the largest category, based on the number ofitems in the category, until a category is reached which will result ina display of item labels and category labels which will fill but notexceed a display area.
 21. The computer program of claim 19, wherein thecategories further comprise a number of sub-categories.
 22. A method ofpresenting a user with a display of a selection of items, wherein eachitem is characterized in the display as being a member of a categoryselected from a plurality of categories, the method comprising the stepsof: determining a number of categories which are to be represented in adisplay; determining a number of selections which can be presented atone time in the display, a selection being either an item or a category,wherein an item can be represented by a plurality of selections if theitem is in a plurality of categories; and displaying at least one itemlabel and at least one category label, where the category labelrepresents the items in the category, where the items and the categoriesdisplayed are determined as a function of a relationship between theitems and the categories.
 23. The method of claim 22, wherein the stepof displaying further comprises the step of determining the relationshipbetween the items and the categories as a function including the numberof categories, the number of selections, and a threshold count.
 24. Themethod of claim 22, wherein the step of displaying further the steps of:representing items from categories having no more items than thethreshold count by individual item labels; and representing items fromcategories having more items than the threshold count collectively by acategory label.
 25. The method of claim 22, further comprising the stepof accepting user input selection of either an item label or a categorylabel.
 26. The method of claim 25, further comprising the step ofgenerating a regenerated display following the selection of a label,wherein the regenerated display is a display filtered according to theselected label.
 27. The method of claim 22, further comprising a step ofsetting the threshold count to a value which is calculated to fill thedisplay with labels.